{"id":3857,"date":"2025-08-17T02:13:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T02:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/3857\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T02:13:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T02:13:15","slug":"profit-isnt-everything-for-this-wexford-pub-owner-after-heart-warming-fleadh-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/3857\/","title":{"rendered":"Profit isn\u2019t everything for this Wexford pub owner after heart-warming Fleadh moment"},"content":{"rendered":"

A publican\u2019s interaction with a family with an autistic child put a busy week into perspective\n<\/p>\n

\"Philip<\/p>\n

Philip Dowdall outside his pub in Wexford town.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An example of Fleadh crowds at the closing ceremony. Pic: Jim Campbell<\/p>\n

\"thumbnail:\"thumbnail:<\/p>\n

The dust has settled on Fleadh Cheoil na h\u00c9ireann in Wexford. When it was hosted in town for the first time ever in 2024, it was brilliant. This year, it was unforgettable. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s estimated that in the region of 800,000 people attended the festival, easily the largest number of all time. In the weeks before, F\u00e1ilte Ireland estimated that it would conservatively be worth \u20ac60 to \u20ac70 million to the local economy. That figure too was smashed.<\/p>\n

Philip Dowdall is hopeful that the Fleadh will come back to Wexford, and that he won\u2019t be retired by then. He runs the famous Swan Bar in the Faythe. Back in 2023, it ranked second in a search for Wexford\u2019s top ten pubs. It has one of the best beer gardens in town.<\/p>\n

Everyone has their own special moments from the Fleadh. And despite all of the millions of drinks that were served up, and the tens of millions made, it wasn\u2019t that for Philip.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did ok in the Swan, we tried to manage our capacity so that everyone had comfort, could listen to the music and in particular we made it a family orientated event\u201d he reflected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe highlights were numerous, but one stood out and I hope this will provide a lesson to others out there not to put quantity of people over quality of service.<\/p>\n

\u201cA family of four visited us each day over the Fleadh. This family included an autistic child who insisted on wearing his headphones and using an iPad each day. He didn\u2019t engage with anyone outside of his core group and even then, it was limited.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the final day, as the family were leaving for the final time, each was thanking us and as the child passed, he gently touched my arm and said thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Philip who thinks he may have annoyed a minority by limiting the capacity in his bar, the moment had a profound impact on him. He\u2019s proud the work himself, his wife Nadine and his staff did to make the pub inclusive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, profit is important, turnover is important, but at the end of the day knowing that one child felt comfortable enough to reach out was the most gratifying result we could have wished for.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A publican\u2019s interaction with a family with an autistic child put a busy week into perspective Philip Dowdall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[4247,18,117,4248,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-3857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cillian-boggan","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-fleadh-cheoil-na-heireann","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}